A new wave of bankruptcy filings for leveraged oil and gas companies has begun and this time it may involve more prepacks and less optimism. Beginning in late 2015 and continuing through 2017, downtown Houston was filled with bankruptcy lawyers. Highly leveraged exploration and production (or E&P) companies had become crippled by falling oil prices and the resulting impact on the value of their producing and non-producing reserves in their borrowing bases.
Going forward, lenders must take precautionary measures to protect themselves. Anticipating the risk of a U.S. bankruptcy case is a crucial first step.
With cov-lite financings at record highs, debt holders will need to be proactive in maximising recoveries
Will the last person leaving please turn out the lites?
Cov-lite loans can leave lenders with limited restructuring options, but creative lenders will still find ways to bring debtors to the table, partners Ian Wallace and Christian Pilkington of global law firm White & Case LLP explain
On 12 June 2019, after a tense meeting with landlords and creditors, the company voluntary arrangements (CVAs) proposed by the Arcadia Group Ltd (Arcadia) were approved by the requisite majority of creditors, allowing the group to restructure its balance sheet and stave off, at least for the time being, a liquidation or administration proceeding.
Arcadia's decline
The banking reform package marks an important step toward the completion of the European post-crisis regulatory reforms
On May 20, 2019, the Supreme Court held in Mission Products Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC that a debtor-licensor's rejection of a trademark license agreement does not "deprive the licensee of its rights to use the trademark." This holding resolves a longstanding circuit split in the Federal Courts of Appeal about the effects of bankruptcy on trademark licenses.
Background
Presented as a major measure of the five-year French presidential term, the law “on growth and business transformation”, also known as the PACTE Act, came into force on May 24th, 2019. Amongst the changes that were brought, some of them deserve a particular focus.
Two phases of the reform. The PACTE Act revises the insolvency legal framework and mainly empowers the executive to directly implement the EU insolvency directive and to reform the law on security interests within a period of two years.
The first phase of the reform
A Singaporean construction company in liquidation has successfully sued one of its former directors for failing to act in the best interests of the company, highlighting the importance of directors being aware of, and protecting against, potential personal liability for breach of duty.
Directors’ liability – the risk
The court noted that the DOJ might prosecute cannabis-related businesses under the CSA, notwithstanding plan confirmation. Thus, Garvin may have foreclosed any future DOJ CSA-based noneconomic objections to cannabis reorganizations.
A worldwide moratorium is one of the most important protections and tools available to a debtor in the Singapore cross-border restructuring regime. A recent Singapore High Court case, Re: Zetta Jet Pte Ltd and Others (Asia Aviation Holdings Pte Ltd, intervener) [2019] SGHC 53 ("Re Zetta Jet (2)"), highlighted some important considerations relating to such a worldwide moratorium, in particular dealing with potential conflicts between different jurisdictions.
Singapore's Cross-border Restructuring Regime